But it sounds true. We're at the point now, where you're a jerk for not going along with convenient lies. Besides, when you really are quite ill lack of sympathy is especially demoralizing.
"Conservative families need to flee blue states now."
Come on down to Florida, which already has a GOP supermajority in the state Legislature, and several lefty groups have recently called for a boycott of the state. Meaning, hopefully, that those folks with the "In this house we believe..." signs in their yard won't move here anymore; and ideally those who are already here will go elsewhere.
Which, of course, further weakens the influence of the Dems in the state Legislature... which is already getting steamrolled by the Republican supermajority.
Let it be this way. Blues go to blue states; reds go to red states. I've little doubt my red state will feature little to no regard for the environment; business special interests will run things even more overtly than they do now. But we won't ever be a sanctuary state for trans kids; abortion will be limited, we won't have Soros-funded prosecutors who refuse to prosecute, we won't demand ever-more empathy and resources for a homeless population which grows as a result, etc. etc. etc.
If we built a Berlin wall, it would be fascinating to see, 10 years down the line, who is scaling the fence to get to the other side.
I was in Florida twice over the winter. Overcrowded is an understatement. When I lived there we used to say the state sank into the Gulf two inches when all the winter people pile in. Now I think it's five or six inches.
My sister and her family just moved this week from a Purple part of North Carolina to Deep Red East Texas. We are working to keep Texas Red. I live in Dallas County, but Texas Blue is a less virulent version of the plague than that which exists in Washington, Michigan, et al. When your standard bearer is Beto O'Rourke, you know you are part of a gesture of futility. Gretchen Whitmer and Jay Inslee however, are the real Demonic deal.
How conclusive is the proof that Jack Teixeira did it? He seems too young (21 years old!) to have had that security access -- and if he did have that access, the problem isn't (just) Jack Teixeira but the entire national security system.
"I really do believe that the State has the moral right to expect that many things will be kept secret."
Is there ever a point where the State loses that "moral right"? If a State lies to its citizens, if its leaders violate its Constitution, if they act without the true consent (as opposed to the manufactured consent) of the people, if the government engages in deception in order to pursue illegal, unconstitutional, and destructive wars, does it cross that line?
It's quite good that you've recognized that your first reaction was hasty and ill-conceived, but now you've raised the issue and the question posed above. How do you answer it? And how do you square your position with "live not by lies"?
That's a good question. I don't think any state could survive with total transparency. That kind of idealism is unrealistic. On the other hand, at what point do the lies end up robbing the state of legitimacy? Or if not legitimacy, then at least authority (as distinct from power)? This is something I need to think about. This is something all of us will be forced to think about in the years to come.
Just wait when AI surveillance is revealed to have individual granularity with individualized censorship and manipulation of disinformation. No use resisting? Nothing new, nothing to be concerned about? My hope is that you are not invincibly ignorant.
In 1960 the Soviets shot down Gary Power's U2 spy plane. Eisenhower denied the plane was ours, then later said it had been blown off course, then when confronted with Power's in custody admitted the truth. The scandal for Americans was Eisenhower's "lies" more than the CIA overflights of the Soviet Union. Sixteen years later and following LBJ, Nixon, and Ford, Jimmy Carter ran for President with the expressed promise: "I will not lie to you."
Today we expect the leaders of both major parties to lie. It's the way we do politics today. How far we have come in just my lifetime.
>>Sixteen years later and following LBJ, Nixon, and Ford, Jimmy Carter ran for President with the expressed promise: "I will not lie to you."
Gosh, it was only 16 years from Eishenhower to Carter, yet, from my perspective (born 1959), it seemed that the Eisenhower years were one of those dinosaur eras in comparison. 16 years ago from here was George W. Bush. Perspective.
All true (though your definition of "successful in their way" remains undisclosed.) There's not much doubt that all presidents, even Jimmy Carter, are compelled to lie in certain circumstances. National security might compel just such a lie, though claiming it is also used routinely to hide mischief. The distinction between acceptable and unacceptable lies - at least in my opinion - lies in whether it is primarily for the benefit of the country or for the benefit of the individual. I would think it almost always wrong in the latter case.
We need to look at what criteria, if any, is being used to justify something being classified. While probably no state could survive total transparency, hiding information from the public because the public would not approve of an action should really not be acceptable. If that makes us somehow less secure (which is the excuse they'll use) then it makes us less secure.
There are profoundly unpopular choices a government must sometimes make which cannot be put to a popular vote, Churchill's decision to allow the Germans to bomb Coventry with no preparation or warnings so as not to betray the fact that the Brits had broken Nazi code is an example.
Yes, which is why I said there should be a criteria. Of course there are times when concealing information is appropriate. There are also a lot of times when it's just the government hiding information because it's something certain agencies do reflexively.
The idea of government documents being "Top Secret" and not allowed to be shared with the public is an invention of the 20th century. Maybe it necessary today, but human history got along very well for centuries without such a system.
This is the difference in the world between those who incline to hierarchical systems of governance, who believe we are to be accountable to authority, and populists who believe that in a republic, public servants are accountable to the citizens.
Ha! My wife used to say all the time, "Oh, stop whining. It's not like you ever gave childbirth." Most of my male friends have heard the same cruelty from their wives. My son Matt has the same cold, though he's a couple days further along, and is improving. I told him, "Well, one good thing about the divorce is that both of us can whine incessantly about our man-colds, without having to suffer chastisement from your mother." I think he appreciated the black humor.
I have recurring bouts of bladder cancer, not serious at this point. But it does mean that I must endure periodic sticks up the dick. So, there's that...
I have been married 45 years. I'm sure glad my wife has never been anything but caring and sympathetic. I was also present for the births of our three children and helped cut the cord of the youngest when he came early. We also had stillbirths and spontaneous miscarriages. Sometimes I wished I hadn't got her pregnant when it seemed dangerous, but she never felt that way, even having a pregnancy at 42.
Methinks you may have revealed someone with never resolved issues that led to divorce, perhaps the hardened heart Jesus spoke about as to why Moses allowed divorce.
Oh no, that's not it at all. My wife took good care of me when I was sick. She just had a very low tolerance for my self-pity when I had a cold. Many of my male friends have the same situation with their wives.
Regardless of what you know about the Ukraine War (or think you know), there is some history that all should know. The Russians have had for centuries a not unjustified paranoia about invasions. From the Golden Horde to Napoleon to Hitler, Russians have seen their country invaded and run over if not overrun. Accordingly, the Soviets and its Warsaw Pact offered a semblance of peace and security that Putin now expressly wishes to reestablish, characterizing NATO as just the latest threat to Mother Russia. Those defensive borders in Europe include not only Ukraine but also Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and the three Baltic republics. All of these, save only Ukraine and Moldova, are NATO members, the attack and invasion of one being an attack and invasion of all. Just as Hitler was not satisfied with the Sudetenland, Putin will not be satisfied with Ukraine. That is a history lesson Western Europe appears to remember and one we would do well to remember too.
Well, we know that since George W. Bush said in 2008 that Ukraine should be part of NATO, Washington has wanted that policy. We also know that Washington, esp Victoria Nuland, engineered the 2014 Color Revolution that replaced a pro-Moscow elected government. I think Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, but I am sympathetic to John Mearsheimer's analysis: that the West behaved provocatively. Ukraine is deep in the Russian psychology in ways that those other nations are not, because it was in Kiev that the Russian people were first Christianized. For that reason, and to keep Ukraine from going behind the NATO defensive wall, one can understand why Putin may have invaded. TO BE CLEAR, I think the war is unjust and Russia should cease and desist attacks on Ukraine! But I don't see why we should fear further invasions by Putin on NATO countries. Besides, Ukraine is not in NATO -- yet we are engaged in defending it almost as if it were. Why? Why are we risking a nuclear war with Russia over a non-NATO country on Russia's border?
However, if Russia is not successful in Ukraine, it likely ends there . . . at least as far as Europe is concerned. If Russia is successful, Moldova is next (and there are already machinations on the ground to that end in the eastern part of that small country.) After Moldova any further western invasions will bring NATO forces into the fray, and given how well the Russian military has performed in Ukraine, that war won't take long. Once Putin and the Russians see losing militarily to NATO as an existential crisis, nuclear weapons, tactical and strategic, become the final option.
No Rod, every international conflict is World War II all over again. If you disagree, well that that makes you Neville Chamberlain and also probably racist and transphobic.
Seriously, being sick at Pascha sucks, I have some kind of really nasty cold too and I'm not even going to try and make it though the service tonight.
The Neville Chamberlain and Munich appeasement template, which is extremely shop-worn, works both ways. If after all the West has done since the purported end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union is viewed through the lens of strategic empathy, it is Putin who would seem to the Russians to have behaved like Chamberlain if he accepted the West's efforts to incorporate Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Ukraine in 2014, to use Ukraine as a lever against Russia (a la Zbigniew Brzezinski), to suppress the language, cultural, and political rights of people in the Donbas.
American policy since the rise of Putin has been to incorporate as many as the former Soviet republics other than Russia into the orbit of the West (first informally and then formally). Any country on Earth in the position of Russia in that case would see this kind of policy as hostile to its interests, for the obvious reason that it is, in fact, hostile to its interests.
Ukraine in many ways was the jewel in the crown of the strategy. It's the biggest and the most strategic for the strategy, because it borders on core European Russia, and placing Nato forces there would represent a new zenith in the alliance's ability to project threat force towards Russia in order to restrain it. At the same time, it's also the case that the Russians view places like the Baltics very differently from how they view Ukraine and Belarus. The latter are both viewed as "core", by the Russians, because of the historical realities that these countries are a product of the Soviet internal reorganization of the Tsarist Empire, and, with the important exception of Western Ukraine (which has mixed historical roots), had never previously been considered "foreign" to Russia prior to 1991. The Russian expectation with respect to these latter countries is that they do not want them to become part of economic and security organizations that are hostile to Russia.
"But what about the Ukrainians -- doesn't what they want matter?" Yes, which is why an invasion is terrible.
It really is a case of a clash of interests here. The US in particular wanted to expand Western influence over Ukraine since at least Bush 2, and that policy came to fruition in the machinations of the US during Euromaidan, after which it was assumed to be essentially a matter of time until the newly installed pro-Western regime became more aligned with Western institutions, which would logically eventually include NATO. The Russians saw this, because honestly everyone saw this -- it's not a secret. However, the West's view was essentially that the Russians should simply accept the new reality of post-Maidan Ukraine being detached from the Russosphere and attached to the West, whereas of course as we see Putin had other ideas, and the invasion is the result of them.
There is a lot of blame to go around for what happened, but I think the US, despite its rhetoric to the contrary, was hardly displeased to see Putin order the invasion, provided that they would be able to assist Ukraine in fending off the initial push (that was the most critical time in the war, really) ... which they were. The best thing for the US in this chess game (because that's what it is) is for Ukraine to end up in the Western orbit anyway, but with a weakened, drained, ruined Russia on the other side that at least for a decade or more will not pose any threat or problem to anyone. And there were also some rumblings inside the "blob" that maybe the Russian insiders would topple Putin if things didn't work out well reasonably quickly, but that didn't happen.
Although I think clearly Washington would have preferred to have Ukraine enter the West's orbit without a war, doing it this way has definite advantages in other ways by simultaneously weakening Russia dramatically due to war drain while making Ukraine's accession into NATO a foregone conclusion. So it's kind of a win/win, albeit a cynical one, as a "second choice" policy. Either way, the expansion of power projection right to the border of Russia's European core was going to happen, whether by war or not. And so Washington is getting what it wants in terms of geo-chess.
Ukraine is probably a foregone conclusion at this point. The real issue is the impact on Taiwan, which is the real flashpoint of the real conflict taking place globally now, with the new cold war heating up. The conflict with Putin and Russia is really both a sideshow and a warmup or "trial run", and Beijing is watching closely as well. Interesting times ahead, I think, one way or the other.
Perhaps the geo-chess that Washington is playing should be the 3D version. Unfortunately our main players have no clue about strategy, even on a 2-dimensional board.
Instead of isolating Russia and weakening Russia, our proxy war in Ukraine has drawn our current enemy, Moscow, and future enemy, Beijing, into a closer alliance. Outside of the EU, few nations have voiced support for military aid to Ukraine. Air Force One had barely left the runway in Riyadh when MBS was already on the phone with Putin, putting on end to Biden's plea for Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. Brazil rebuked demands for arms shipments to the conflict zone and president Lula in is currently in China with an entourage of industry leaders.
Whether we like it or not, another world is being born before our eyes, even if Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland are blind to it.
I agree that this is the risk they are running, and it's essentially a bet. They (by which I mean the DC-based fp/military complex) think that this bid to maintain a global monopolar American hegemony is the best bet for American interests, and so it's where they're placing their chips, pretty much all of them, in a rather grandiose way at the moment.
I think the "gambit" is to create a slightly different basis for continued American hegemony in the 21st: a kind of three-legged stool of (1) overwhelming military supremacy, (2) financial supremacy via global payments and a hoped-for dollarized global digital currency that would (they hope) solidify continued dollar hegemony and (3) technological supremacy, by actively throttling technological competitors and hoarding tech to ourselves. So a new form for American global hegemony based on a techno-military-financial "hard stick" of power, rather than "winning the hearts and minds", because it has been realized that the latter is not going to be that successful in the 21st.
Some of this is based on the realization that the China policy since the 1990s (ie, let China develop a market economy and the political question of democracy will solve itself eventually) has failed, or at least has been delayed for an uncertain period of time by the rise of Xi. Some of it is based on the realization that the "third countries" (Brazil, India, Saudi, etc.) are not going to have their "hearts and minds" won over, probably ever, in the way that, say, Singapore or Japan or South Korea did, and so a different model of hegemony from "making everyone kinda like us" is now coming into play -- less carrot, more stick. More hard power, less soft power.
You ignore that the coup installing a government that excluded the ethnic Russians who make up the population in the east portion of the country triggered a civil war. What was to be the fate of these excluded people? Genocide, apparently through war. It was inevitable that at some point these people would look to protection from Russia once the US made it clear they didn't care what happened to these people, and encouraged either their subjugation or elimination. Kiev's recent statements about retaking the Donbas and Crimea are that there will be unlimited repression and revenge for their treason, and that all things Russian will be liquidated. Nice nationalists among the pure, non Slavic Ukrainians we ally with. But it's convenient that way, we didn't approve of it, but hey, they are sovereign, even though they're not allowed to make peace as they die in droves.
Sure. I wasn't justifying the morality or reasonableness of US policy, and indeed Ukraine is a complicated country to say the least. I was just stating that it has been US strategy, for better or worse, to detach Ukraine from the Russosphere and expand NATO there for quite some time. Brzezinski, who in many ways is the prime thinker on the American center-left when it comes to foreign policy, was a firm believer in the inclusion of Ukraine into the West and its detachment from the Russosphere, although Brzezinski stopped short of calling for inclusion in NATO because he believed this to be a step too far for the Russians. That was reflected in US policy as well, I think, which did not support expansion of NATO to include Ukraine (at least not publicly) although many did think that over time, if Ukraine became integrated into the EU, its eventual accession in NATO would somehow become more acceptable to Russia at some future stage, for some unspecified reason. In any case, these are the ideas that have been at the core of the FP/military-complex aka "blob" in DC for decades now, and on a bipartisan basis more or less.
In any case it wouldn't be the first time the US stepped into an existing complicated conflict because it suited us for larger geo-strategic reasons.
To be fair to Neville, he did buy England another year to rearm. But that said, the Chamberlain Lesson is one studied differently in America and Western Europe. I would suggest that European NATO has not been more unified of purpose in this regard than since the end of World War Two, not to mention the addition of Sweden and Finland.
Yes, that extra year. However, both he and Daladier go down as moral cretins. Neither of them had any intention of lifting a finger to help Poland in any substantive way. The Brits sent a couple of bomber squadrons over Kiel, and that was that. The poor Poles fully expected the Royal Navy to shoot its way into the Baltic and the French to launch an offensive into the Rhineland no later than D16. The "guarantee" was meant to deter Hitler, and nothing else. It may have spooked him, but it didn't deter him. Shame.
"Neither of them had any intention of lifting a finger to help Poland in any substantive way." With just one slight quibble, I agree. I would end that sentence with the caveat "that might harm their countries further." I'm sure Chamberlain would have taken further action if he felt a reasonable chance of success. As for the Royal Navy shooting its way into the Baltic, that wasn't ever going to happen. Too much risk for too little gain. But if Russia had been at the time an ally, I wouldn't think a "Doolittle Raid" on Berlin out of the question, especially after Dunkirk the following year. Symbolism does have some strategic value at certain points in a conflict.
You are correct. Britain was not ready for war in 1938. The first Hurricanes and Spitfires were just getting built at Chamberlain's insistence. The French were going through an undeclared Civil War between right and left and were not ready for war. Neo-conservatives get great pleasure beating upon Neville Chamberlain like he was a heavily dusted rug. They are as predictable as the Woody Hayes football teams fifty years ago. Run, run, run.
Ah, Woody Hayes. What a sportsman! I remember the Gator Bowl game where the opposing team intercepted the ball and began running down the sideline to a certain score (and Ohio State defeat). Hayes stepped in his path and began punching him in the stomach until referees and even his own players pulled him off.
From my time in the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association at an executive level during the Cold War and for a time thereafter, I am very familiar with official policy. It remains First Strike nuclear deterrent and usage, unchanged from first use in 1945. Since 1992, the Wolfowitz Doctrine has been policy, influenced by Brzezinski, which seeks first, US sovereignty over Ukraine, with capture of Sevastopol and conversion from Russian to US military base, along with eliminating Russian forces from the Black Sea and access to the Mediterranean. Nuclear missiles were to be placed at the far eastern border with Russia, five minutes from obliteration of Moscow. Eventually, every Russian province is to become ostensibly independent, eliminating Russia forever, all ruled by western installed governors , but in fact subsidiary to the US. The overarching aim is to secure the world for the US, or its elite interests, through Full Spectrum Dominance, a de facto empire that will be the greatest in human history. As for Ukraine pre coup, the government was not pro-Russian, but wanting to have commercial relations with both East and West. It is the US that demanded complete fealty to one side and an exclusive military partnership in pursuit of its aims to eliminate Russia, which many of our politicians claim is not even a real country and so does not deserve to exist. And now with Woke ascendancy, we know why they support its elimination as well for ideological anti Christian obsessions.
Or, to change it around just a wee bit, "Just as the West was not satisfied with the end of the Cold War, or with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, or the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the West was not satisfied with Ukraine and Georgia being neutral or with the democratically elected Yanukovich government, or with Russian-speaking Ukrainians maintaining their language and culture. That is a history lesson Russia and Putin appear to remember and one we would do well to remember too."
Well, if we are to sit on a pile of radioactive rubble, I'm going to blame Reagan for walking away from Gorbachev's offer to do away with his nukes if Reagan would do away with his and also his Star Wars program. Reagan simply would not give up a theoretical shield for an actual nuclear disarmament.
While both have similar ends in mind, Chamberlain's appeasement was not exactly the same as Eisenhower's Domino Theory. The former manifested in a military invasion of a weaker, adjacent territory or nation as a consequence of another's weakness or lack of resolve; the latter referred to the subversion of a government by a hostile, adjacent nation, which in due course would subvert its neighbor and so on and so forth.
Thanks, Rod, for the more balanced take on leaks. And, yes, traditional Christian families and individuals who wish to have some degree of freedom to be traditional Christian do need to get out of blue states.
I hope you are well enough to enjoy the celebration tonight. He is risen!
Dear Rod- I hope your cold dissipates rapidly. In re the situation regarding the lies the govt told/tells about Ukraine, this has been known to most of us who seek out real sources. Please, don’t listen to the MSM and rely on real people like Scott Ritter, The Duran (Alex Mercouris and Alexander Cristoforou), iEarlgrey, Seymour Hersch, The Gray Zone, et al. You might not agree with all they say, but you would have been way ahead on the war i Ukraine at least, not to mention Nordstream, the EU, NATO, Taiwan, etc. Most of what was “revealed” by the Texeira leaks has been known for the better part of a year.
But not definitively revealed, and certainly not as the brazen lies they are, merely suspected by the well informed. This is the smoking gun, though every network news broadcast is studiously ignoring it still.
The State gave security clearance to a child who yaks on Discord. Does that matter?
The State is monitoring your words and actions without any legal cover. You know this for a fact. Do you care?
National divorce is candy, I get it. There is another name for it, irredentism.
You are in Romania. You know about Trianon. You know that Transylvania was built by Hungarians and Germans, who ruled it and developed it for a thousand years.
I bet you didn't know that Romanians are lying in their official histories, they're not originally from Transylvania, instead, they are half-Balkan half-Latin people of the Eastern Roman Empire who slowly migrated north, sometimes as guest workers, and over many centuries gradually out-bred us. They overtook us with sheer numbers like a horde of Mexicans steadily seeping up from the south and then eventually took the country, too. Then, they sold our native Germans, the Saxons and Schwabians, erased an 800 year-old legendary community, set about wrecking it as soon as they got Transylvania. They sold the Jews that were left after the Holocaust. The Hungarians are almost gone, too, we are rapidly decreasing. Nobody gives a shit, except maybe Orban. Hey, at least we still got Gypsies. And we have thousands of Romanian flags on buildings built by Hungarians and Germans. They are so proud of the country we built, which they took from us, and which they subsequently reduced to their level, and rearranged to their taste.
How do you feel about a national divorce in Romania? I say let's break up that country, and make Transylvania independent, or else, just give it back to Hungary, who is the rightful owner.
That's one legitimate perspective. Sometimes, divorce is the right choice. But it's a painful one, and hardly something to celebrate. Unless of course it falls on the Fourth of July.
I never trust the state. I always default to “whatever they say is a lie” and I hold to that position until overwhelming evidence is presented otherwise. I think this is a wise choice. Their “secrets” are in almost every case is just to cover their rears and protect their power.
Hey Rod, you might be interested to know that Budweiser CEO Brendan Whitworth just mysteriously nuked his LinkedIn profile a few hours ago. I wonder why?
Well, it turns out that Whitworth was a CIA operations officer for about 5 years. Call me paranoid but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these companies are pushing this transgender stuff with a lot of encouragement from federal agencies
In the linked video of Squeeky, watch the woman in the front row on the right side of the screen. She starts by snapping her fingers in autistic-friendly applause at the beginning of his speech, but as he goes on about the people he's the boyfriend and girlfriend of, she gets more and more uncomfortable. Her progressive views require her to smile and nod along, but her face betrays that even she finds this somewhat disturbing.
It reminds me of that Bitter Lake documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdrvpSfJM1w). If that Muslim woman is why we lost Afghanistan, this lady will be why transgenderism will lose.
Seen on social media “My husband & I both have colds. The difference is I’m cleaning the kitchen & he’s dying.” Some truth to that! However I’m sorry you’ve got such a wretched cold & hope you feel better soon.
I got sick with a cold last month for the first time since before Covid.
Colds I can handle. But a fever frags me right out. I once had a fever spike at work and I left early to go home. The drive of 18 miles was frightening-- I would have felt less incapable had I just guzzled a bottle of tequila.
According to the Daily Mail, the US has 14 "boots on the ground," in Ukraine. And according to Fox News, those 14 soldiers are not, as Tucker Carlson in his Op/Ed says, "fighting Russian soldiers," but protecting the US Embassy in Kyiv. BTW, The United States has forces protecting every US Embassy, in case you didn't know that, so there are US forces everywhere around the world. This is the first time that I've heard that Embassy protection is a declaration of war, or a hot war. But, as we all know, Mr. Carlson likes to exaggerate. A lot.*
*Reminder, Tucker Carlson is considered Entertainment / Opinion, and not news, even within the Fox News universe, which is how he's hoping to evade the Dominion lawsuit.
By the way there were Russian advisers in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Were we on the edge of WWIII if one of our bombs took one or more of those guys out? Vietnam was a bad, bad war we should have stayed out of, but unless all the histories are wrong there doesn't seem to gave been any sense of the apocalyptic about it.
We have over 160,000 troops (of all branches) deployed in 750 overseas military bases in 80 countries, not to mention protection at every US embassy around the world, and everyone's talking about 14 in Ukraine. You want to get worried? Check out this 2021 story from AlJazeera. We even have a military base in Hungary, at Papa. (Orban doesn't seem to mind; Rod might want to write a post on that some day.)
"This is the first time that I've heard that Embassy protection is a declaration of war, or a hot war. "
Actually it's not even the first time, nobody has said it all other than you. The article says Special Forces are operating out of the embassy.
'White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Fox News that these soldiers "are not fighting on the battlefield" and are there to help monitor the support Washington is providing to Ukraine,'
Not embassy protection, which is almost definitely being done by the Marines
But it sounds true. We're at the point now, where you're a jerk for not going along with convenient lies. Besides, when you really are quite ill lack of sympathy is especially demoralizing.
At least now that we know there are US forces directly engaging Russians, that we are in direct war, done secretly without our informed consent.
"Conservative families need to flee blue states now."
Come on down to Florida, which already has a GOP supermajority in the state Legislature, and several lefty groups have recently called for a boycott of the state. Meaning, hopefully, that those folks with the "In this house we believe..." signs in their yard won't move here anymore; and ideally those who are already here will go elsewhere.
Which, of course, further weakens the influence of the Dems in the state Legislature... which is already getting steamrolled by the Republican supermajority.
Let it be this way. Blues go to blue states; reds go to red states. I've little doubt my red state will feature little to no regard for the environment; business special interests will run things even more overtly than they do now. But we won't ever be a sanctuary state for trans kids; abortion will be limited, we won't have Soros-funded prosecutors who refuse to prosecute, we won't demand ever-more empathy and resources for a homeless population which grows as a result, etc. etc. etc.
If we built a Berlin wall, it would be fascinating to see, 10 years down the line, who is scaling the fence to get to the other side.
I was in Florida twice over the winter. Overcrowded is an understatement. When I lived there we used to say the state sank into the Gulf two inches when all the winter people pile in. Now I think it's five or six inches.
And just think, they're obese, too?
My sister and her family just moved this week from a Purple part of North Carolina to Deep Red East Texas. We are working to keep Texas Red. I live in Dallas County, but Texas Blue is a less virulent version of the plague than that which exists in Washington, Michigan, et al. When your standard bearer is Beto O'Rourke, you know you are part of a gesture of futility. Gretchen Whitmer and Jay Inslee however, are the real Demonic deal.
How conclusive is the proof that Jack Teixeira did it? He seems too young (21 years old!) to have had that security access -- and if he did have that access, the problem isn't (just) Jack Teixeira but the entire national security system.
"-- and if he did have that access, the problem isn't (just) Jack Teixeira but the entire national security system."
Exactly so. A perfect indictment in just half a sentence.
Larry Johnson, formerly of the CIA, has some excellent insight on this story.
https://sonar21.com/about-larry/
"I really do believe that the State has the moral right to expect that many things will be kept secret."
Is there ever a point where the State loses that "moral right"? If a State lies to its citizens, if its leaders violate its Constitution, if they act without the true consent (as opposed to the manufactured consent) of the people, if the government engages in deception in order to pursue illegal, unconstitutional, and destructive wars, does it cross that line?
It's quite good that you've recognized that your first reaction was hasty and ill-conceived, but now you've raised the issue and the question posed above. How do you answer it? And how do you square your position with "live not by lies"?
That's a good question. I don't think any state could survive with total transparency. That kind of idealism is unrealistic. On the other hand, at what point do the lies end up robbing the state of legitimacy? Or if not legitimacy, then at least authority (as distinct from power)? This is something I need to think about. This is something all of us will be forced to think about in the years to come.
An impossible standard. No government is omnipotent (thank God!) so there will always be evil that cannot be restrained.
Just wait when AI surveillance is revealed to have individual granularity with individualized censorship and manipulation of disinformation. No use resisting? Nothing new, nothing to be concerned about? My hope is that you are not invincibly ignorant.
In 1960 the Soviets shot down Gary Power's U2 spy plane. Eisenhower denied the plane was ours, then later said it had been blown off course, then when confronted with Power's in custody admitted the truth. The scandal for Americans was Eisenhower's "lies" more than the CIA overflights of the Soviet Union. Sixteen years later and following LBJ, Nixon, and Ford, Jimmy Carter ran for President with the expressed promise: "I will not lie to you."
Today we expect the leaders of both major parties to lie. It's the way we do politics today. How far we have come in just my lifetime.
Or, rather, how far we have fallen.
>>Sixteen years later and following LBJ, Nixon, and Ford, Jimmy Carter ran for President with the expressed promise: "I will not lie to you."
Gosh, it was only 16 years from Eishenhower to Carter, yet, from my perspective (born 1959), it seemed that the Eisenhower years were one of those dinosaur eras in comparison. 16 years ago from here was George W. Bush. Perspective.
I am pretty sure that old Abe Lincoln lied often. Franklin Roosevelt was a great liar. But they were successful in their way.
All true (though your definition of "successful in their way" remains undisclosed.) There's not much doubt that all presidents, even Jimmy Carter, are compelled to lie in certain circumstances. National security might compel just such a lie, though claiming it is also used routinely to hide mischief. The distinction between acceptable and unacceptable lies - at least in my opinion - lies in whether it is primarily for the benefit of the country or for the benefit of the individual. I would think it almost always wrong in the latter case.
We need to look at what criteria, if any, is being used to justify something being classified. While probably no state could survive total transparency, hiding information from the public because the public would not approve of an action should really not be acceptable. If that makes us somehow less secure (which is the excuse they'll use) then it makes us less secure.
There are profoundly unpopular choices a government must sometimes make which cannot be put to a popular vote, Churchill's decision to allow the Germans to bomb Coventry with no preparation or warnings so as not to betray the fact that the Brits had broken Nazi code is an example.
Excellent point. People died in Coventry so that the German naval code would not be revealed. That saved many more Britons.
Yes, which is why I said there should be a criteria. Of course there are times when concealing information is appropriate. There are also a lot of times when it's just the government hiding information because it's something certain agencies do reflexively.
The idea of government documents being "Top Secret" and not allowed to be shared with the public is an invention of the 20th century. Maybe it necessary today, but human history got along very well for centuries without such a system.
This is the difference in the world between those who incline to hierarchical systems of governance, who believe we are to be accountable to authority, and populists who believe that in a republic, public servants are accountable to the citizens.
Have a wonderful Pascha, Rod. Thank you soooooo much for this Substack!! Kali Anastasi!
Women who have gone through child birth at least have the hint of an idea of the suffering that men experience when they have a cold.
Get well soon!
Ha! My wife used to say all the time, "Oh, stop whining. It's not like you ever gave childbirth." Most of my male friends have heard the same cruelty from their wives. My son Matt has the same cold, though he's a couple days further along, and is improving. I told him, "Well, one good thing about the divorce is that both of us can whine incessantly about our man-colds, without having to suffer chastisement from your mother." I think he appreciated the black humor.
I have recurring bouts of bladder cancer, not serious at this point. But it does mean that I must endure periodic sticks up the dick. So, there's that...
A friend of mine is going through this. You have my sympathy and my prayers.
Thank you.
So sorry my friend.
I have been married 45 years. I'm sure glad my wife has never been anything but caring and sympathetic. I was also present for the births of our three children and helped cut the cord of the youngest when he came early. We also had stillbirths and spontaneous miscarriages. Sometimes I wished I hadn't got her pregnant when it seemed dangerous, but she never felt that way, even having a pregnancy at 42.
Methinks you may have revealed someone with never resolved issues that led to divorce, perhaps the hardened heart Jesus spoke about as to why Moses allowed divorce.
Oh no, that's not it at all. My wife took good care of me when I was sick. She just had a very low tolerance for my self-pity when I had a cold. Many of my male friends have the same situation with their wives.
Harsh, but loving, I guess. Whining and dining. The Stoic, versus the Epicurean.
I must have inherited a good gene somewhere. My colds are not that bad.
Regardless of what you know about the Ukraine War (or think you know), there is some history that all should know. The Russians have had for centuries a not unjustified paranoia about invasions. From the Golden Horde to Napoleon to Hitler, Russians have seen their country invaded and run over if not overrun. Accordingly, the Soviets and its Warsaw Pact offered a semblance of peace and security that Putin now expressly wishes to reestablish, characterizing NATO as just the latest threat to Mother Russia. Those defensive borders in Europe include not only Ukraine but also Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and the three Baltic republics. All of these, save only Ukraine and Moldova, are NATO members, the attack and invasion of one being an attack and invasion of all. Just as Hitler was not satisfied with the Sudetenland, Putin will not be satisfied with Ukraine. That is a history lesson Western Europe appears to remember and one we would do well to remember too.
Well, we know that since George W. Bush said in 2008 that Ukraine should be part of NATO, Washington has wanted that policy. We also know that Washington, esp Victoria Nuland, engineered the 2014 Color Revolution that replaced a pro-Moscow elected government. I think Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, but I am sympathetic to John Mearsheimer's analysis: that the West behaved provocatively. Ukraine is deep in the Russian psychology in ways that those other nations are not, because it was in Kiev that the Russian people were first Christianized. For that reason, and to keep Ukraine from going behind the NATO defensive wall, one can understand why Putin may have invaded. TO BE CLEAR, I think the war is unjust and Russia should cease and desist attacks on Ukraine! But I don't see why we should fear further invasions by Putin on NATO countries. Besides, Ukraine is not in NATO -- yet we are engaged in defending it almost as if it were. Why? Why are we risking a nuclear war with Russia over a non-NATO country on Russia's border?
However, if Russia is not successful in Ukraine, it likely ends there . . . at least as far as Europe is concerned. If Russia is successful, Moldova is next (and there are already machinations on the ground to that end in the eastern part of that small country.) After Moldova any further western invasions will bring NATO forces into the fray, and given how well the Russian military has performed in Ukraine, that war won't take long. Once Putin and the Russians see losing militarily to NATO as an existential crisis, nuclear weapons, tactical and strategic, become the final option.
No Rod, every international conflict is World War II all over again. If you disagree, well that that makes you Neville Chamberlain and also probably racist and transphobic.
Seriously, being sick at Pascha sucks, I have some kind of really nasty cold too and I'm not even going to try and make it though the service tonight.
The Neville Chamberlain and Munich appeasement template, which is extremely shop-worn, works both ways. If after all the West has done since the purported end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union is viewed through the lens of strategic empathy, it is Putin who would seem to the Russians to have behaved like Chamberlain if he accepted the West's efforts to incorporate Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Ukraine in 2014, to use Ukraine as a lever against Russia (a la Zbigniew Brzezinski), to suppress the language, cultural, and political rights of people in the Donbas.
Don't be ridiculous, how can we talk about Russia as if it was one of the Allies?
In all seriousness I started to make the same point, but then got lazy and deleted it. You did a better job explaining it than I was going to anyway.
Basically.
American policy since the rise of Putin has been to incorporate as many as the former Soviet republics other than Russia into the orbit of the West (first informally and then formally). Any country on Earth in the position of Russia in that case would see this kind of policy as hostile to its interests, for the obvious reason that it is, in fact, hostile to its interests.
Ukraine in many ways was the jewel in the crown of the strategy. It's the biggest and the most strategic for the strategy, because it borders on core European Russia, and placing Nato forces there would represent a new zenith in the alliance's ability to project threat force towards Russia in order to restrain it. At the same time, it's also the case that the Russians view places like the Baltics very differently from how they view Ukraine and Belarus. The latter are both viewed as "core", by the Russians, because of the historical realities that these countries are a product of the Soviet internal reorganization of the Tsarist Empire, and, with the important exception of Western Ukraine (which has mixed historical roots), had never previously been considered "foreign" to Russia prior to 1991. The Russian expectation with respect to these latter countries is that they do not want them to become part of economic and security organizations that are hostile to Russia.
"But what about the Ukrainians -- doesn't what they want matter?" Yes, which is why an invasion is terrible.
It really is a case of a clash of interests here. The US in particular wanted to expand Western influence over Ukraine since at least Bush 2, and that policy came to fruition in the machinations of the US during Euromaidan, after which it was assumed to be essentially a matter of time until the newly installed pro-Western regime became more aligned with Western institutions, which would logically eventually include NATO. The Russians saw this, because honestly everyone saw this -- it's not a secret. However, the West's view was essentially that the Russians should simply accept the new reality of post-Maidan Ukraine being detached from the Russosphere and attached to the West, whereas of course as we see Putin had other ideas, and the invasion is the result of them.
There is a lot of blame to go around for what happened, but I think the US, despite its rhetoric to the contrary, was hardly displeased to see Putin order the invasion, provided that they would be able to assist Ukraine in fending off the initial push (that was the most critical time in the war, really) ... which they were. The best thing for the US in this chess game (because that's what it is) is for Ukraine to end up in the Western orbit anyway, but with a weakened, drained, ruined Russia on the other side that at least for a decade or more will not pose any threat or problem to anyone. And there were also some rumblings inside the "blob" that maybe the Russian insiders would topple Putin if things didn't work out well reasonably quickly, but that didn't happen.
Although I think clearly Washington would have preferred to have Ukraine enter the West's orbit without a war, doing it this way has definite advantages in other ways by simultaneously weakening Russia dramatically due to war drain while making Ukraine's accession into NATO a foregone conclusion. So it's kind of a win/win, albeit a cynical one, as a "second choice" policy. Either way, the expansion of power projection right to the border of Russia's European core was going to happen, whether by war or not. And so Washington is getting what it wants in terms of geo-chess.
Ukraine is probably a foregone conclusion at this point. The real issue is the impact on Taiwan, which is the real flashpoint of the real conflict taking place globally now, with the new cold war heating up. The conflict with Putin and Russia is really both a sideshow and a warmup or "trial run", and Beijing is watching closely as well. Interesting times ahead, I think, one way or the other.
Perhaps the geo-chess that Washington is playing should be the 3D version. Unfortunately our main players have no clue about strategy, even on a 2-dimensional board.
Instead of isolating Russia and weakening Russia, our proxy war in Ukraine has drawn our current enemy, Moscow, and future enemy, Beijing, into a closer alliance. Outside of the EU, few nations have voiced support for military aid to Ukraine. Air Force One had barely left the runway in Riyadh when MBS was already on the phone with Putin, putting on end to Biden's plea for Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. Brazil rebuked demands for arms shipments to the conflict zone and president Lula in is currently in China with an entourage of industry leaders.
Whether we like it or not, another world is being born before our eyes, even if Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland are blind to it.
I agree that this is the risk they are running, and it's essentially a bet. They (by which I mean the DC-based fp/military complex) think that this bid to maintain a global monopolar American hegemony is the best bet for American interests, and so it's where they're placing their chips, pretty much all of them, in a rather grandiose way at the moment.
I think the "gambit" is to create a slightly different basis for continued American hegemony in the 21st: a kind of three-legged stool of (1) overwhelming military supremacy, (2) financial supremacy via global payments and a hoped-for dollarized global digital currency that would (they hope) solidify continued dollar hegemony and (3) technological supremacy, by actively throttling technological competitors and hoarding tech to ourselves. So a new form for American global hegemony based on a techno-military-financial "hard stick" of power, rather than "winning the hearts and minds", because it has been realized that the latter is not going to be that successful in the 21st.
Some of this is based on the realization that the China policy since the 1990s (ie, let China develop a market economy and the political question of democracy will solve itself eventually) has failed, or at least has been delayed for an uncertain period of time by the rise of Xi. Some of it is based on the realization that the "third countries" (Brazil, India, Saudi, etc.) are not going to have their "hearts and minds" won over, probably ever, in the way that, say, Singapore or Japan or South Korea did, and so a different model of hegemony from "making everyone kinda like us" is now coming into play -- less carrot, more stick. More hard power, less soft power.
You ignore that the coup installing a government that excluded the ethnic Russians who make up the population in the east portion of the country triggered a civil war. What was to be the fate of these excluded people? Genocide, apparently through war. It was inevitable that at some point these people would look to protection from Russia once the US made it clear they didn't care what happened to these people, and encouraged either their subjugation or elimination. Kiev's recent statements about retaking the Donbas and Crimea are that there will be unlimited repression and revenge for their treason, and that all things Russian will be liquidated. Nice nationalists among the pure, non Slavic Ukrainians we ally with. But it's convenient that way, we didn't approve of it, but hey, they are sovereign, even though they're not allowed to make peace as they die in droves.
Sure. I wasn't justifying the morality or reasonableness of US policy, and indeed Ukraine is a complicated country to say the least. I was just stating that it has been US strategy, for better or worse, to detach Ukraine from the Russosphere and expand NATO there for quite some time. Brzezinski, who in many ways is the prime thinker on the American center-left when it comes to foreign policy, was a firm believer in the inclusion of Ukraine into the West and its detachment from the Russosphere, although Brzezinski stopped short of calling for inclusion in NATO because he believed this to be a step too far for the Russians. That was reflected in US policy as well, I think, which did not support expansion of NATO to include Ukraine (at least not publicly) although many did think that over time, if Ukraine became integrated into the EU, its eventual accession in NATO would somehow become more acceptable to Russia at some future stage, for some unspecified reason. In any case, these are the ideas that have been at the core of the FP/military-complex aka "blob" in DC for decades now, and on a bipartisan basis more or less.
In any case it wouldn't be the first time the US stepped into an existing complicated conflict because it suited us for larger geo-strategic reasons.
To be fair to Neville, he did buy England another year to rearm. But that said, the Chamberlain Lesson is one studied differently in America and Western Europe. I would suggest that European NATO has not been more unified of purpose in this regard than since the end of World War Two, not to mention the addition of Sweden and Finland.
Yes, that extra year. However, both he and Daladier go down as moral cretins. Neither of them had any intention of lifting a finger to help Poland in any substantive way. The Brits sent a couple of bomber squadrons over Kiel, and that was that. The poor Poles fully expected the Royal Navy to shoot its way into the Baltic and the French to launch an offensive into the Rhineland no later than D16. The "guarantee" was meant to deter Hitler, and nothing else. It may have spooked him, but it didn't deter him. Shame.
"Neither of them had any intention of lifting a finger to help Poland in any substantive way." With just one slight quibble, I agree. I would end that sentence with the caveat "that might harm their countries further." I'm sure Chamberlain would have taken further action if he felt a reasonable chance of success. As for the Royal Navy shooting its way into the Baltic, that wasn't ever going to happen. Too much risk for too little gain. But if Russia had been at the time an ally, I wouldn't think a "Doolittle Raid" on Berlin out of the question, especially after Dunkirk the following year. Symbolism does have some strategic value at certain points in a conflict.
Yes. Take the time machine back to Sept. 20, 1939, and talk to the Poles about symbols.
You are correct. Britain was not ready for war in 1938. The first Hurricanes and Spitfires were just getting built at Chamberlain's insistence. The French were going through an undeclared Civil War between right and left and were not ready for war. Neo-conservatives get great pleasure beating upon Neville Chamberlain like he was a heavily dusted rug. They are as predictable as the Woody Hayes football teams fifty years ago. Run, run, run.
Ah, Woody Hayes. What a sportsman! I remember the Gator Bowl game where the opposing team intercepted the ball and began running down the sideline to a certain score (and Ohio State defeat). Hayes stepped in his path and began punching him in the stomach until referees and even his own players pulled him off.
From my time in the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association at an executive level during the Cold War and for a time thereafter, I am very familiar with official policy. It remains First Strike nuclear deterrent and usage, unchanged from first use in 1945. Since 1992, the Wolfowitz Doctrine has been policy, influenced by Brzezinski, which seeks first, US sovereignty over Ukraine, with capture of Sevastopol and conversion from Russian to US military base, along with eliminating Russian forces from the Black Sea and access to the Mediterranean. Nuclear missiles were to be placed at the far eastern border with Russia, five minutes from obliteration of Moscow. Eventually, every Russian province is to become ostensibly independent, eliminating Russia forever, all ruled by western installed governors , but in fact subsidiary to the US. The overarching aim is to secure the world for the US, or its elite interests, through Full Spectrum Dominance, a de facto empire that will be the greatest in human history. As for Ukraine pre coup, the government was not pro-Russian, but wanting to have commercial relations with both East and West. It is the US that demanded complete fealty to one side and an exclusive military partnership in pursuit of its aims to eliminate Russia, which many of our politicians claim is not even a real country and so does not deserve to exist. And now with Woke ascendancy, we know why they support its elimination as well for ideological anti Christian obsessions.
Or, to change it around just a wee bit, "Just as the West was not satisfied with the end of the Cold War, or with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, or the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the West was not satisfied with Ukraine and Georgia being neutral or with the democratically elected Yanukovich government, or with Russian-speaking Ukrainians maintaining their language and culture. That is a history lesson Russia and Putin appear to remember and one we would do well to remember too."
Well, if we are to sit on a pile of radioactive rubble, I'm going to blame Reagan for walking away from Gorbachev's offer to do away with his nukes if Reagan would do away with his and also his Star Wars program. Reagan simply would not give up a theoretical shield for an actual nuclear disarmament.
Actually the treaties now abrogated by the US, were signed during Reagan's time.
That's odd but I've heard this domino theory before...
While both have similar ends in mind, Chamberlain's appeasement was not exactly the same as Eisenhower's Domino Theory. The former manifested in a military invasion of a weaker, adjacent territory or nation as a consequence of another's weakness or lack of resolve; the latter referred to the subversion of a government by a hostile, adjacent nation, which in due course would subvert its neighbor and so on and so forth.
Thanks, Rod, for the more balanced take on leaks. And, yes, traditional Christian families and individuals who wish to have some degree of freedom to be traditional Christian do need to get out of blue states.
I hope you are well enough to enjoy the celebration tonight. He is risen!
Dear Rod- I hope your cold dissipates rapidly. In re the situation regarding the lies the govt told/tells about Ukraine, this has been known to most of us who seek out real sources. Please, don’t listen to the MSM and rely on real people like Scott Ritter, The Duran (Alex Mercouris and Alexander Cristoforou), iEarlgrey, Seymour Hersch, The Gray Zone, et al. You might not agree with all they say, but you would have been way ahead on the war i Ukraine at least, not to mention Nordstream, the EU, NATO, Taiwan, etc. Most of what was “revealed” by the Texeira leaks has been known for the better part of a year.
But not definitively revealed, and certainly not as the brazen lies they are, merely suspected by the well informed. This is the smoking gun, though every network news broadcast is studiously ignoring it still.
The State gave security clearance to a child who yaks on Discord. Does that matter?
The State is monitoring your words and actions without any legal cover. You know this for a fact. Do you care?
National divorce is candy, I get it. There is another name for it, irredentism.
You are in Romania. You know about Trianon. You know that Transylvania was built by Hungarians and Germans, who ruled it and developed it for a thousand years.
I bet you didn't know that Romanians are lying in their official histories, they're not originally from Transylvania, instead, they are half-Balkan half-Latin people of the Eastern Roman Empire who slowly migrated north, sometimes as guest workers, and over many centuries gradually out-bred us. They overtook us with sheer numbers like a horde of Mexicans steadily seeping up from the south and then eventually took the country, too. Then, they sold our native Germans, the Saxons and Schwabians, erased an 800 year-old legendary community, set about wrecking it as soon as they got Transylvania. They sold the Jews that were left after the Holocaust. The Hungarians are almost gone, too, we are rapidly decreasing. Nobody gives a shit, except maybe Orban. Hey, at least we still got Gypsies. And we have thousands of Romanian flags on buildings built by Hungarians and Germans. They are so proud of the country we built, which they took from us, and which they subsequently reduced to their level, and rearranged to their taste.
How do you feel about a national divorce in Romania? I say let's break up that country, and make Transylvania independent, or else, just give it back to Hungary, who is the rightful owner.
That's one legitimate perspective. Sometimes, divorce is the right choice. But it's a painful one, and hardly something to celebrate. Unless of course it falls on the Fourth of July.
I never trust the state. I always default to “whatever they say is a lie” and I hold to that position until overwhelming evidence is presented otherwise. I think this is a wise choice. Their “secrets” are in almost every case is just to cover their rears and protect their power.
Hey Rod, you might be interested to know that Budweiser CEO Brendan Whitworth just mysteriously nuked his LinkedIn profile a few hours ago. I wonder why?
Well, it turns out that Whitworth was a CIA operations officer for about 5 years. Call me paranoid but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these companies are pushing this transgender stuff with a lot of encouragement from federal agencies
It does seem that there has been a concerted effort to place deep state assets in strategic positions in media and corporate leadership.
In the linked video of Squeeky, watch the woman in the front row on the right side of the screen. She starts by snapping her fingers in autistic-friendly applause at the beginning of his speech, but as he goes on about the people he's the boyfriend and girlfriend of, she gets more and more uncomfortable. Her progressive views require her to smile and nod along, but her face betrays that even she finds this somewhat disturbing.
It reminds me of that Bitter Lake documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdrvpSfJM1w). If that Muslim woman is why we lost Afghanistan, this lady will be why transgenderism will lose.
Seen on social media “My husband & I both have colds. The difference is I’m cleaning the kitchen & he’s dying.” Some truth to that! However I’m sorry you’ve got such a wretched cold & hope you feel better soon.
I got sick with a cold last month for the first time since before Covid.
Colds I can handle. But a fever frags me right out. I once had a fever spike at work and I left early to go home. The drive of 18 miles was frightening-- I would have felt less incapable had I just guzzled a bottle of tequila.
I'm still doing N95 in public places inside.
According to the Daily Mail, the US has 14 "boots on the ground," in Ukraine. And according to Fox News, those 14 soldiers are not, as Tucker Carlson in his Op/Ed says, "fighting Russian soldiers," but protecting the US Embassy in Kyiv. BTW, The United States has forces protecting every US Embassy, in case you didn't know that, so there are US forces everywhere around the world. This is the first time that I've heard that Embassy protection is a declaration of war, or a hot war. But, as we all know, Mr. Carlson likes to exaggerate. A lot.*
Maybe we should all calm down a bit.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-forces-ukraine-sparks-questions-what-happens-russia-accidentally-kills-american-soldier
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11963787/British-American-special-forces-inside-Ukraine-leaked-documents-claim.html
*Reminder, Tucker Carlson is considered Entertainment / Opinion, and not news, even within the Fox News universe, which is how he's hoping to evade the Dominion lawsuit.
It's generally the case that we have a small number of soldiers defending our embassies since they are technically American territory.
Follow the link Eve gave, the even the quoted US official has said they're helping out in another capacity.
By the way there were Russian advisers in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Were we on the edge of WWIII if one of our bombs took one or more of those guys out? Vietnam was a bad, bad war we should have stayed out of, but unless all the histories are wrong there doesn't seem to gave been any sense of the apocalyptic about it.
That's done by the Marines, not Special Forces. The quoted US official specifically said that they were doing something else.
We have over 160,000 troops (of all branches) deployed in 750 overseas military bases in 80 countries, not to mention protection at every US embassy around the world, and everyone's talking about 14 in Ukraine. You want to get worried? Check out this 2021 story from AlJazeera. We even have a military base in Hungary, at Papa. (Orban doesn't seem to mind; Rod might want to write a post on that some day.)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-military-presence-around-the-world-interactive
"This is the first time that I've heard that Embassy protection is a declaration of war, or a hot war. "
Actually it's not even the first time, nobody has said it all other than you. The article says Special Forces are operating out of the embassy.
'White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Fox News that these soldiers "are not fighting on the battlefield" and are there to help monitor the support Washington is providing to Ukraine,'
Not embassy protection, which is almost definitely being done by the Marines
https://www.state.gov/marine-security-guards/#:~:text=U.S.%20Marine%20Security%20Guards%20have,and%20consulates%20around%20the%20world.
By the way this isn't really news. The presence of US advisers was reported last summer..
Nothing to see until the mushroom clouds. But hey, no biggie, that's happened before. I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.